Evaluating ICT for Education in Africa - Royal Holloway, University of ...

(Krstic 2008, Kipp 2009, Kraemer et al. 2009, Unwin 2010), I have focusedon guided discovery and the promotion of critical thinking as central aspectsof a potential alternative (Mayer 2004, Kirschner et al. 2006, Paul and Elder2007). In addition, renewed emphasis on rigorous and innovativemonitoring, evaluation and impact assessment is important in addressing thenegative effects of technological determinism, inappropriate pedagogy,disconnected thinking, assumptions of universal applicability andirresponsible educational experimentation.In closing, I now address three additional factors which must be consideredin order to facilitate the spread of alternative approaches to pedagogy withinassessing ICT for education initiatives in Africa: repositioning education asthe central factor, providing an incentive for change towards alternativeteaching approaches, and focusing on secondary education as the mostappropriate point for deployment of digital technology.First, positioning control of an ICT for education programme with a MoIT(Ministry of Information Technology), or an equivalent, rather than with theMoE may exacerbate the tendency for technological considerations to beconsidered in preference to pedagogical ones (Selinger 2009). Kocsev(15/12/08) was keenly aware of the negative consequences this had foreffective monitoring and evaluation in Ethiopia. He noted how the lack ofeducational grounding was a significant hurdle:„That is exactly the problem: it is seen as an ICT programme.It is as if now the laptops are distributed we are part of thedigital age… It is understood at all levels in terms of an ICTliteracy project – not an ICT for education project. Even whentalking to teacher training colleges – they understand it as anICT literacy project. Getting beyond this is really hard.‟Similarly, the headmaster of Menelik (11/12/08) expressed his ongoingfrustration at the technological focus:312